Home Is Where
by Threepwillow
Summary: Bogus missions spawn jealousy and late night circular thoughts foster epiphanies. Tobias is Young and Restless. [RachelxTobias, excessive sap and emohawk.]


-Storm coming up.-

Marco must have turned to look, too. -Oh yeah, look at that. Hope it doesn't sweep too far over our direction. Some of us don't have the most experience flying in nasty weather.-

-Aww, don't be a baby,- said Rachel.

-Some of us don't like flying in nasty weather regardless,- I pointed out. -Let's just shoot for no storm.-

But Marco had already gone off on a tangent. -See, now, wouldn't _that_ be a cool power? Storm, from the X-Men. Forget "hey look, I'm a big chicken!" Trade that in for some zap! mutant powers.-

-Marco - -

-It would have to be Rachel's power, though. She's the only one that's even approaching Halle Berry-level hotness. Or does it go to Cassie by default for being a black chick?-

-_Marco_ - -

-I know, I know: shut up.- If he'd had human eyes he'd have rolled them. -Can you blame me for trying to liven up this stakeout? We've been sitting here all afternoon and it's _boooooring_.-

-At least we're up in the sky and not trapped in a Dumpster,- Rachel pointed out.

-There's just no better place to hide Andalite firepower in the middle of downtown,- I said. -I feel bad for him, I'm going to swoop back into thought-speak range and see how he's doing.-

-Don't forget to check in on the lovebirds while you're at it!- Marco sniggered. -I bet they're loving this solo time. How come they got to go in as themselves? Rachel, you and I would have made a much more convincing couple.-

-Who are we convincing, blind, deaf octagenarians?-

-I'll double back in a second,- I told them, leaving them to their bickering with a chuckle. I pulled into a shallow, swooping dive, coasting above the busy street that lay between our vantage position and the stretch of road where the Starbucks and its accompanying Dumpster sat nestled between a big office building and the local YMCA. Great, go to the Y to exercise and then walk next door and blow it all with coffee and pastries.

I perched as inconspicuously as possible on top of a big air conditioning unit on the roof of the Y and called out to Ax. -Heya.- I made sure to keep Jake and Cassie - positioned strategically inside the Starbucks - in on the conversation as well, and if they strained, Marco and Rachel across the street could probably just barely hear what I had to say, too. Ax would be too far away, and Jake and Cassie, still human, couldn't answer.

-Hello, Tobias.-

-How's it going down in there?-

-Claustrophobic, as it has been all day. Andalites are easily unnerved by enclosed spaces.- He didn't need to tell me - I'd felt that feeling before myself, in Andalite morph and my natural hawk form. -I am wondering if perhaps it would not work better for me to morph something else with instincts better designed for coping with this situation.-

-All up to you, Ax-man.- But eyeballing Jake through the Starbucks window, I saw him ever-so-slightly shake his head no. To anyone else it would have seemed like he was just responding to Cassie, who sat across from him at the table, sipping on a Strawberries & Cream latte.

For a moment there I saw not Jake and Cassie, but two other kids, one undeniably gorgeous and one noticeably awkward, laughing at each other's dumb jokes and splitting a chocolate chip cookie.

-Nah, Jake wants you Andalite, just in case our guy shows up and things get nasty.- Looking back at Jake I saw him gesture subtlely at his watch. -Oh, he also wants to know how much longer Rachel and Marco have in morph.-

-Oh, yeah...should know,- came Rachel's thought-speak ever-so-faintly from across the cityscape.

-They have approximately thirty-five of your minutes, Prince Jake.- I repeated the message to Rachel and Marco.

Jake gave a definite eye-roll, which I knew exactly how to interpret. -I think Jake would like it if you didn't call him "Prince."-

-And not..._everyone's_...!-

-And Marco would prefer it if you just said "minutes" instead of "our" minutes, but that really only bugs him, and I actually think it's kind of funny how worked up he gets.-

Cassie laughed from inside this time, loud enough that I could hear her through the glass. Briefly her laugh was pitched slightly lower and accompanied by a casual toss of the head that sent blond hair rippling in shiny waves.

Nobody said anything for a while, except for Jake and Cassie's normal and mostly inaudible Starbucks conversation. Then Ax wanted to know something. -Why is it that almost all of the humans in this establishment are sitting in pairs?- he asked me privately.

I sighed. -It's a coffee place,- I said. -It makes for a good date spot.-

-Date spot?-

-Yeah, you know. You find a pretty girl, you're really into her, and you want to take her someplace sweet and normal, just the two of you. So you get a little table for two at the Starbucks, drink crappy coffee, and pretend like no one else is there.-

-I think I understand. With an Andalite female we would run together and graze, perhaps in a field of the sweet _memnas_ moss instead of normal grass. I can understand the desire to escape into privacy.-

-Yeah,- I said.

-Tobias, there is someone you would like to purchase crappy coffee with, is there not?-

I looked over at Jake and Cassie again with ever-increasing jealousy. -Yeah, Ax-man, there really is.-

I was peeling off to rejoin Rachel and Marco when Jake gave the signal for "it's a no-show, let's bail," and began getting up to leave the Starbucks. Then, the storm hit.

-Augh, I got so distracted over there, I forgot it was looking like rain!-

-Tut, tut,- said Marco darkly.

-Come on, Jake and Cassie are leaving,- said Rachel. -Tell Ax to morph and then let's get the heck outta here.-

-This has been a total waste of time. I could have been playing Metal Gear Solid!-

I relayed the message to Ax, but then took off toward Cassie's barn as fast as I could, with the others trailing me as close as they could without making it look like a raptor convention had just swooped into downtown. My outermost feathers were already drenched and we hadn't even hit the brunt of it yet. There is nothing better than flying, but there is nothing worse than flying wet.

-Oh, _yuck_,- Marco whined. -This isn't getting any better! Trying to get back to Cassie's we're just flying straight into it!-

-Hey, at least you're supposed to be a water bird,- I pointed out. -Shiny osprey you is doing way better than little old red-tail me.-

-All this wind!- cried Rachel. -I'm getting tossed around like a rag doll.-

-We started off pretty high up,- I said. -Just use your leftover altitude for speed and we ought to crash straight through it. Sorry, Ax-man.-

-It is all right. I believe I will try to navigate my way to the nearest forest area and then demorph, and rejoin you at the Clinic from the ground.-

-Sounds like a plan,- I said.

-I just feel bad for Jake and Cassie,- said Marco. -They didn't bring an umbrella.-

We fought and fought back toward the edge of town, but it seemed like the storm and us were traveling in the same direction. No matter what we did we couldn't escape the downpour. I started to get worried after a while because I knew the extra flapping around we had to do was cutting into Rachel and Marco's remaining time in morph.

-There it is! I see it!- The red barn was jutting up on the horizon. We poured on as much speed as we could muster, flying straight into the wind with tired wing muscles. One by one, we finally shot in through the open rafters, with Marco and Rachel dropping to the floor like lead weights and demorphing immediately. I fluttered into my customary spot and started to preen, anxious to be clear of all the nasty rainwater.

Rachel emerged from morph lying flat on her back in the hay, staring up at the ceiling and laughing with adrenaline through her heavy breathing. She looked incredible. It was proof of what Jake and Cassie always said: Rachel could get thrown through a hurricane and come out the other side looking perfect.

Marco emerged from morph already whining. "Remind me again why we couldn't just get the Chee to do this?"

xx

Cassie offered to let me stay in the barn that night because of all the rain, but I didn't take her up on it. There was something weird about sleeping away from my perch in my meadow, like sleeping in a bed that wasn't yours. I'd handled rain before.

I had a hard time sleeping, though. It's a very human thing to find falling asleep difficult. A hawk, an animal, sleeps when it's tired and eats when it's hungry. But I was restless, soggy bark irritating under my talons and human brain racing with thoughts. Stupid thoughts.

Thoughts about me, Rachel, and crappy coffee. Thoughts I generally tried not to entertain.

As much as I'd come to accept the fact that she was a human being with a real life and I was...well, _me_, there were nights like this when our Montague/Capulet situation started driving me insane. How nice would it have been, to be like Jake and Cassie, or even like Ax and his hypothetical _memnas_ plant girl! Even with all the other war-related craziness around us they were two of the same kind. Jake and Cassie could hold hands between classes, could go see a ninety-minute movie and kiss each other when it started to get lame, and still have time to grab some Wendy's afterward. And that was something that Rachel and I would never be again.

Of course, she would say that I had a choice. That if I wanted to, it would take just over two hours to call off this star-crossed lovers crap. But that just wasn't something I could do. If I morphed back to human, I'd be there permanently, a _nothlit_ in my own skin. I just couldn't sit back and do nothing in this fight. Even when I'd been a hawk _nothlit_ I was good for reconnaisance, for tailing people, scoping out new information. As a regular human...well, I couldn't stand thinking that if something happened to my friends - to _Rachel_ - that I wouldn't be able to fight back and help them out.

I just couldn't.

Besides, what would I do if I was human again? Where would I go? My bum aunt and alcoholic uncle never seemed to care much when I just up and disappeared. Returning from out of nowhere after - god, had it been almost a year? - well, they'd probably just consider me an inconvenience. Be more upset about me crashing their lives then relieved that I wasn't dead in a ditch somewhere. I didn't have a home as a human. As a hawk I at least had my meadow.

I fluttered a damp wing in agitation. I wasn't usually this restless and melancholy, was I? What did I usually do when my brain wouldn't turn off at night?

Oh, right. The one thing that wouldn't work this time. I'd fly over to see Rachel.

xx

It was a week later. The failed stakeout mission had never really gone anywhere, and we'd kind of written it off as a bad tip. There didn't seem to be any secret Yeerk pool entrance at the Starbucks. We'd even tried scoping out the YMCA, too, and that didn't get us anything either, although it was practically impossible to tell because the building was so big and so busy all the time.

For me, it had been a week of being restless. It was that same jumpy, jealous feeling and I couldn't stand it. I knew the others were noticing that I was getting distant, even more than usual. I hadn't even been talking to Ax as much.

One restless night the epiphany hit me. It could have been eleven-thirty or four in the morning, I couldn't tell. I just knew what I had to do. But how to go about doing it?

I started lingering around this playground, out back of an elementary school on the outskirts of town. I was looking for something very specific, and it was really the best place for it. Little kids drop and lose things all the time.

But I knew I was kind of freaking out a few of the kids and lots of the parents. A great big bird of prey getting so close to humans without spooking and going somewhere else was a little weird.

"Mommy, look at the big bird! Can I feed him my crackers?" It was a little blond kid, couldn't have been more than six. I tried not to stare at her. But with hawk eyes you're kind of always staring.

"No, honey, don't get any closer to him. Big birds like that don't eat crackers like the pigeons at the park. Besides, birds are dirty, you could get sick."

"I don't wanna touch him, I just wanna say hi. Hello, birdy!" she said, walking a step or two closer to the tree where I sat. Her mother was watching her nervously, as if I would swoop down and attack her at any moment. "Hello!" she said again, and this time she waved at me, and I saw it. It was exactly what I had been looking for.

So I took the chance. -Hello. What's your name?-

Her blue eyes went wide and her little tiny mouth curved up in a little tiny smile. "It's Katie, my name is Katie! What's yours?"

-Toby,- I said. Katie's mommy, fortunately, had gone back to fussing over a much smaller boy which I assumed was Katie's little brother. She wasn't questioning the conversation her daughter was having with a red-tailed hawk.

"Hi, Toby! Do you want to play?"

-I...I can't play right now,- I told her. -I'm looking for something for my friend Rachel.-

"Is Rachel a bird too?"

-...Yes. She's a big bald eagle. Do you know what those are?-

"They're the really big ones!"

Her face was so cute it almost hurt to look at, and I couldn't believe what I was about to do. -That's right! But Katie, listen to me. The thing I'm looking for, for Rachel, is something that you have. Yours is so, so pretty, it would be perfect to give to her. Do you think it would be okay if...if I had it?- I felt like a creepy old man, swooping around playgrounds and deceiving little kids.

"Oh, you mean this?" She held it up again. Then her eyes went even wider. "Are you gonna - "

-You're really smart, Katie. I...I think I am gonna do that.-

She was already tugging it off and setting it at the foot of my tree. When I fluttered down to pick it up she backed away, a little nervous from my big flapping wings.

-Thank you...so much, Katie. You're a very nice friend.-

"Aww, don't cry, Toby. It only cost me a quarter."

xx

It was Sunday morning at dawn. I knew she was still asleep, that her mom and her sisters were still asleep. I needed to catch her with no one else around.

The sun coming up cast this surreal light on her through her window, kind of an orange-yellow all across her bed. I could see her blond hair all tangled up with her sheets and pillowcases and it was like she was shining.

It was so incredible that I flew away and back to her windowsill three or four times, losing my nerve. I didn't deserve someone like this. There was no way it was ever going to work.

The fifth time she caught me, and opened the window so I fell in. She was standing there in just the overlong T-shirt she had slept in and some purple fuzzy slippers. I almost swallowed it.

"What are you doing here, Tobias? It's like five-thirty in the morning."

All my restless nights of circular thoughts and self-pity had led up to this moment, I realized. Had led to Rachel standing in her nightshirt and slippers with a confused and slightly frustrated just-out-of-bed expression, and me sprawled out on her uncomfortable beige carpet, a crumpled heap of feathers at a good angle to see all the shoes she had stored under her bed.

_I had to just do it._

I started the morph very slowly. I had to do the whole thing slow if I wanted it to work right. I'm no Cassie. As soon as I felt my human legs emerging from the hawk's talons, I shifted around to put them in the right position. The traditional position. Then my arms crawled out of my wings, my torso still mostly hawk, awkwardly large bird's breastbone jutting my chest out at a really weird angle. The red tail feathers shrank up into my butt, my eyes faded out into weak human eyesight, and my normal dirty blond hair sprouted out from my mostly human head. The rest of my feathers stayed until then, but with a shlooping sound only I could hear got sucked back into my skin. The beak was last, and when it turned into human lips I had to try again not to swallow it, my tongue reshaping and throat adjusting.

I reached up and pulled out Katie's capsule-machine plastic ring. The gold paint was flaking off the band and it was so small it would probably fit on Rachel's toe. But it was exactly right for the situation.

"I just...had a question I needed to ask you."

She looked at me questioningly for a moment, but then the recognition dawned on her - gold ring, on my knees, asking her a question. Then she looked at me like I was the world's biggest idiot, and I figured that was probably true.

Then she dropped to her knees and kissed me, which didn't make a whole lot of sense, but I went with it.

"Not yet," she said, "not yet, _duh_ - "

"When it's over," I said.

"But only if you...you have to be..."

"It'll be okay, then." I finally managed to smile at her. I tried to stick the ring on her pinky and it just barely went. "Then I won't need to fight. Then I can stay."

She nodded, and smiled, too. "Then you'll have a home."


End file.
